The key to transformation is not to fight with our experience but to open to it with awareness.

Mindfulness is attention to life, and life itself is sacred.

The greatest obstacle to meditation is our expectation about what it should be.

Zen does not confuse spirituality with thinking about God while one is peeling potatoes. Zen spirituality is just to peel the potatoes.

Right View is not just a matter of intellectual understanding but of seeing things as they really are.

The practice of Dharma is a constant battle within oneself.

The heart of the path is quite simple. No need for long explanations. Give up clinging to love and hate, just rest with things as they are.

When we rest in awareness, we discover a peace that is always present, regardless of circumstances.

Our defilements are like tame tigers. If you feed them, they're tame. If you stop feeding them, they'll eat you up.

Mindfulness helps us get better at seeing the difference between what's happening and the stories we tell ourselves about what's happening.

We should find perfect existence through imperfect existence.

Self-awareness is the key to freedom. The more we understand ourselves, the more we understand how to be free.

The color of the mountains is Buddha's body; the sound of running water is his great speech.

Zen proposes its solution by directly appealing to facts of personal experience and not to book-knowledge.

You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.

The more we understand impermanence, the more we appreciate each moment of our lives.

The mind is like a wild monkey, jumping here and there. But through meditation, we learn to see whatever arises in our mind with more spaciousness and clarity.

Fear is a natural reaction to moving closer to the truth.

Mindfulness is the quality and power of mind that is aware of what's happening—without judgment and without interference.

Should a person do good, let him do it again and again. Let him find pleasure therein, for blissful is the accumulation of good.

Judge your success by what you had to give up in order to get it.

The development of wisdom does not occur in isolation but requires the cultivation of the entire Noble Eightfold Path.

Walk as if you are kissing the Earth with your feet.

The instant you speak about a thing, you miss the mark.

Mindfulness helps you go home to the present. And every time you go there and recognize a condition of happiness that you have, happiness comes.

The essence of mind is empty like space; yet it contains all things, like a mirror.

The real secret of the arts: always be a beginner.

The spiritual journey begins with the recognition that beneath our surface happiness there lies a deep inner pain.

Let none find fault with others; let none see the omissions and commissions of others. But let one see one's own acts, done and undone.

Altruism is not a luxury, it is a necessity for the survival of humanity.

The roots of all goodness lie in the soil of appreciation for goodness.

A good friend who points out mistakes and imperfections and rebukes evil is to be respected as if he reveals a secret of hidden treasure.

Whoever told you that practice and enlightenment are separate?